The present invention relates generally to collar-mounted electronic animal training devices, especially dog training devices, and more particularly to improvements therein reduce the occurrence and severity of skin sores, especially neck skin sores.
A variety of electronic dog training collars and bark limiters have been utilized for selectively applying precisely controlled electrical shock stimulus to a dog.
The closest prior art is believed to include the present assignee's Bark Limiter product and commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,795 by G. Farkas entitled “Barking Control Device and Method”, issued Aug. 14, 1990 and incorporated herein by reference. U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,795 discloses a bark training device which allows a dog to control the level of electrical stimulus in response to its own barking behavior by means of circuitry in a collar-mounted electrical device that detects the onset of barking and initially produces only a single low level electrical stimulus pulse that gets the dog's attention, but does not initially produce a highly unpleasant level of stimulation. If the dog continues barking, the stimulation levels of the electrical shock pulses are increased at the onset of each barking episode in a stepwise fashion. Another prior art reference is the assignee's U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,482 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Remote Control of Animal Training Stimulus” by Gonda et al., issued Feb. 7, 1989 and incorporated herein by reference.
A shortcoming of most prior art collar-mounted dog or other animal training products is that “rocking” of their stimulation electrodes often causes neck sores on the dog.
Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,484 discloses improved electrodes 6 and 7 having upper ends that protrude approximately 0.1 to 0.25 inches above the upper ends of plastic insulators 4 and 5, respectively. This structure effectively eliminates the large parallel resistance that would exist between the two un-insulated electrodes if the fur of the dog were wet and therefore also eliminates the shunting of a large portion of the electroshock current away from the neck of the dog that would occur if the fur of the dog were wet. Such shunting would, of course, greatly decrease the shock stimuli that would be actually applied to the neck of the dog. By providing insulative housings 4 and 5 around all but the extreme upper tips of the electrodes, the parallel resistances referred to are minimized and adequate electroshock signals are applied to the dog when it is either drive or wet. U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,484 discloses that for most short-haired dogs, the tips 6 and 7 should be provided so that they extend approximately 100 mils (0.1 inches) above the insulators 4 and 5, effective electroshock stimulus can be applied to the dog's neck regardless of whether the dog is dry or soaking wet or swimming in water, and for long-haired dogs, the tips 6 and 7 should extend as much as about one-fourth of an inch above the insulators.
A Tucson, Ariz. company known as “Eltrex-4” has collar-mounted electrical stimulus product including a four-point stimulus electrode contact arrangement in which the stimulus probes are short enough that rocking of the stimulus electrodes is not a substantial problem. This product includes multiple electro-stimulus electrode bases that conduct electro-stimulus signals of various intensities, and the user selects the desired intensity by using only two conductive stimulus probes, which are threaded into two of the electro-stimulus electrode bases so the desired stimulus level is applied via those two conductive stimulus probes. Insulating probes are threaded into the remaining electro-stimulus electrode bases to collar and electrically isolate the electro-stimulus electrode bases conducting signals other than the desired stimulus level.
Accordingly, there is an unmet need for an improved collar-mounted animal training device that substantially reduces the occurrence and/or severity of neck sores on the animal wearing the device.
There also is an unmet need for an improved bark control device that provides a convenient and effective self-test capability.